Terror
by freakanature06
Summary: Lovino has always had night-terrors, and they scare him more than he ever knew he could be scared. Until Antonio enters his life.    Lovino/Antonio. Character death, self-harm, violence.


**A/N: This story is inspired by something my girlfriend was talking to me about over the weekend. She mentioned an album that was about night terrors and was really creepy, and... this started happening, so... XD; I plan to continue with it, so don't worry too much.**

_Disclaimer: I do not own, nor have I ever owned Hetalia. I have, however, had a couple of night terrors in my time._

Prologue

Lovino Vargas wasn't sure if it was something that had been going on his whole life or if it was just something that had developed after dealing with life's hardships, but for as long as he could remember he had been the victim of violent night terrors. The first one that he could remember hearing about from his family was when his grandfather had died. Apparently, he had had a dream in which little monsters were dragging his grandfather into a bright white light. The terrified child had tried desperately to fight off the monsters, but in the end they started dragging him into the light as well and he was left fighting - badly - for his life.

He never found out what exactly he had done in the real world while that dream tortured his mind. Mostly because his mother used make-up to cover up all the bruises he had inflicted on her in his delirious state.

The terrors have gone through spells. Sometimes they have disappeared for years on end, while at others they occurred every night for a few long months. Typically, though, they have stuck around at a minimal level - one or two a month, depending on how stressed his is at the time.

There have been three notable times in Lovino's life where the terrors were involved in some way.

After the first terror struck, none hit so intensely until he was ten years old. That was when his family received the news that his father had died in a massive car accident on the highway. Lovino hurt himself so badly in his sleep over the next few months that child services stepped in and nearly took him from his mother, fearing that she was beating him and mentally torturing his little brother - who was still a little scarred from watching Lovino tear at his own flesh with his nails while yelling about the "little devils".

However, through careful and hard work, that situation cleared itself up and Lovino was returned to his mother along with his brother (Feliciano). For a few years, the terrors disappeared again, only occurring in a minor dose once when he was sixteen. At the age of eighteen, Lovino lost one of the last two things of any importance in his life - his mother. Illness took her. And he was so devastated that he hardly slept at all for the next couple of months. And every time he did, the dreams were there, waiting for him. Dreams of his mother's face being torn to shreds by vicious claws. He always awoke from these dreams to find that he had managed to cut up Feliciano's face with his nails, and though the terrified sixteen-year-old stuttered that it was alright and that he understood, Lovino never forgave himself for hurting his own brother. And from then on, he slept on his own, in a room that was locked from the outside.

The night terrors didn't stop after that. Month after month, Lovino was plagued by them. Not every night, certainly, but often enough that it made him terrified to sleep anywhere but in his safe, secure room.

That is, until he met _him_.

Antonio Fernandez Carriedo.

From the moment Lovino met the overly-optimistic Spaniard, something shifted and changed within him. Antonio made very forward advances, obviously interested in Lovino in a romantic way. And while Lovino tried to either ignore or rebuff his efforts, he found himself getting closer and closer to Antonio anyway. Because whenever he had spent a day with Antonio, Lovino slept a dreamless night. Even on nights when the terrors weren't around, he had always had dreams - whether good or bad, they were always there, irritating, terrifying him because he never knew when they would turn on him. But with Antonio around, Lovino never dreamt. It was blissful.

"_Was" being the operative word._


End file.
